The Islamic
Center of Tucson
Khutba 8th
Series:
bringing-up our children
by:Shaikh Watheq Al-Obaidi
In The name of
Allah the most Merciful
Praise be to
Allah the Lord of the worlds and peace and blessings be upon Prophet Muhammad
(pbu).
My Khutba is
about the parental feelings toward their children. Allah has created the
feelings of love, mercy, and kindness in the hearts of the parents.
Allah describe
these feelings in the Qur'an in the best way possible. Allah describe children
as the ornaments of
this life {Children and property
are the ornaments of the worldly life}. And in another verse
Allah describes them as delight if they follow the path of piety {They (the believers) pray, "Lord,
let our spouses and children be the delight of our eyes and ourselves examples
for the pious ones}.
In other verses
Allah tells how prophets, as parents, gave advice to their children {Abraham left this legacy to his sons
and, in turn, so did Jacob saying, "God has chosen this religion for you.
You must not leave this world unless you are a Muslim} or they
advise their children to respect good deeds, to abstain from doing bad deeds,
to be patient when they have hardship {My son, be steadfast in prayer. Make others do good.
Prevent them from doing evil. Be patient in hardship. Patience comes from faith
and determination}
The Qur'an sets
two examples of two of the Prophets' sons. The first is the son of Noah. Noah's
parental feelings made him say to his son { When the Ark sailed on with them amid the mountainous
waves, Noah called out to his son who kept away from them, "My son, embark
with us}, but the bad son did not listen to his caring father and
replied { "I shall climb up
a mountain and this will save me from the flood."} Noah said
{ "No one can escape on this
day from God's command except those on whom He has mercy}. Being a
stubborn disbeliever, the son of Noah refused to listen to his father and to
embark with him. {The Ark sailed
on with amid the mountainous waves} after this argument {The waves separated
Noah from his son who was then drowned with the rest}. Then Noah felt a pity
for his son and prayed to Allah to save his son saying { Lord, my son is a
member of my family. Your promise is always true and you are the best Judge}.
Whereas, Allah promised to save his family members who were righteous { He is not one of your family. He is a
man of unrighteous deeds} so the punishment of the son of Noah
was to be drowned.
The other
example is the example of Prophet Ibrahim who is the father of prophets. When he
dreamed that Allah ordered him to kill his son { When his son was old enough to work with him, he said,
"My son, I have had a dream that I must sacrifice you. What do you think
of this?" He replied, "Father, fulfill whatever you are commanded to
do and you will find me patient, by the will of God}, but Allah ransomed him with a great sacrifice.
The mufasreen (the interpreters of Qur'an) say that Ibrahim had the same dream
several times but his parental pity toward his son made him refrain from doing
that. But when he was sure that it was from Allah he told his son about it.
All parents
have to know, after this eighth talk about how to bring up our children. You
have to know that our children need us to care, to befriend, to talk to them to
increase their self-confidence. That should go in accordance with their age and
needs. It should be based on the love that Allah created in our hearts towards
our children.
We should take
our reverend Prophet as a role model of loving, care to all the people who
surrounded him, including kids, despite the fact that he had great
responsibilities. He used to call his daughter Fatima 'the the mother of her
father'. He used to kiss her on her forehead and make her sit on his coat when
she visited him.
I seek
forgiveness from Allah for me, to my parents and to all Muslims.
